Chapter 17
Terran
Silas J. Montgomery.
I paused my scrolling, my finger hesitating over the wheel on the mouse, voices on the other side of the door coming and going as people passed by, a loud conversation about someone’s vacation coming up that I could only hear the tail end of as their voices faded down the hall.
The rest of the spare office was quiet, the door to the room tightly closed to keep me sealed in here with no one else roaming around the precinct being the wiser. I’d snuck in during everyone’s lunch break and before anyone could spot me and send me home for coming back before my leave was up.
The chair under me squeaked as I leaned back into it.
The screen in front of me flickered slightly as the ten year old monitor struggled to keep up with the rapid cooling of the CPU seated on the floor, the heat from the fan kicking up and warming me slightly as it bounced off the underside of the desk.
Unmarried. No kids.
Well, at least that confirmed I wasn’t some closeted secret stowed away from his family. As far as last year’s tax records were concerned, anyway. Things could’ve changed drastically in the past seven months since then, but I highly doubted it.
His friends struck me as the type who would call him out for something like that, not seem surprisingly delighted to walk in on me staying over and rope me into cooking them a two-course breakfast.
That had to be a good sign, right?
Clicking through to the next page to last year’s tax filings had me immediately moving back to the first one when my gaze latched onto the several zeros at the end of his salary.
Why the surprise of him being absolutely loaded still shocked me was anyone’s guess at this point.
If not the car, the house was a dead giveaway.
Gated community, personal guards down at the front perimeter checking people in and out of the neighborhood.
His blatant uncaring attitude as we rolled through the Starbucks drive thru and I’d been coerced into getting the ritzy-est fucking drink of my life that actually cost half a tank of gas for my beater.
What was it about Silas that made me so fixated on him?
It wasn’t the money, even if it was flattering as hell to be spoiled with it. That wasn’t where the interest was harboring. There was something else I couldn’t put my finger on.
His attitude?
Personality?
Looks?
Whatever it was, it was driving me absolutely fucking mad.
Funny how only a handful of days between us seeing each other again had begun to feel like weeks the more that time passed. Four days was all I needed to wait for Wednesday to come rolling around and already two days in was making me want to crawl out of my skin with want.
How the hell was I supposed to wait another forty-eight hours and not bash my head in in the meantime?
Probably more, considering I was meeting him at the hospital where he would most likely be getting off his shift—whenever the hell that was.
Speaking of which...
Scrolling down to the bottom of the first page of personal information, I snagged his phone number and plugged it into my contacts, shooting him a quick ‘when do you get off work on Wednesday?’ before immediately regretting it the instant the message was marked off as being delivered.
Fuck.
We’d never formally exchanged numbers. Now, I was going to look like some stalker. Or worse, neurotic.
I was starting to believe that having withdrawals from a person were the beginning stages to some kind of undiagnosed illness that had spontaneously manifested the second I’d gotten dropped off at the front of my house with the promise of Wednesday still ringing in my ears as his Alfa Romeo’s engine rumbled back down the road toward the opposite side of town.
Leaving me to deal with dodging my sister’s incessant questions while my niece clung to my leg the second I got through the front door.
Keeping things vague, being relaxed and easygoing with our future plans, all in an effort to keep things as noncommittal as possible with both my sister and myself. Funny, that was how I’d viewed things not even two days ago, and now, I found myself doing the exact opposite.
One good lay was all it took for me to sneak into my job with the sole purpose of using my credentials to access the government’s database and make sure he wasn’t involved with someone else.
It had to be a sickness.
Or maybe I was always like this. Maybe I’d always been this insane and had yet to attach it to someone until Silas gave me a reason to trigger it in the first place.
My sister was always accusing me of having a lover boy’s heart.
Who knew it was, in fact, terminal.
My phone buzzed.
Abusing your powers to get my personal number? What a classic move for someone in your position.
I stared down at the screen in disbelief. Not one question as to who was texting him. He knew immediately.
My mind toggled between that being a good and bad sign. Good for the fact that there was no question as to who in the world would be asking him what his schedule was come Wednesday outside of me and bad because... well.
That meant my behavior wasn’t at all shocking.
My fingers flew over the screen. Would you rather I show up at your house to ask?
His answer was immediate. I figured you’d be more resourceful in finding a way to contact me.
I let the phone drop from my hands to cradle my face instead.
It was hard to tell if he was encouraging this behavior or calling me out for it in that odd, dry way of his.
I wanted to believe he felt like none of this was weird, or at least not weird enough to be turned off by it.
There was so much guesswork when I wasn’t facing him and seeing his genuine reaction to finding my text sitting in his inbox and realizing who it was from.
Was he happy to hear from me?
Displeased?
Or, fuck, worst of all: indifferent?
That last one would send me into a goddamn spiral. Especially, since the last day and a half I’d spent trying not to go off the deep end and finding myself doing the exact opposite by looking him up.
Lifting my phone up again, I typed out a slow, How so?
My heart hammered annoyingly in my chest when the text was read and not responded to.
Glancing at the clock, I decided he was either just clocking in for his shift, or was in the middle of a double and had taken a second to check his phone before diving back in to walk the floor and check on everyone who’d been assigned to him.
Either way, pulled away from answering me for the next few hours.
Not that I’d memorized his rotation or anything while I’d been under his care. I was lucky to be getting some kind of response in the first place.
What am I even doing?
Stressing myself out was stupid as much as it was pathetic. Caring about one man’s opinion and perception of me was pitiful. Not to mention unattractive as hell.
Leaning into my own delusions and allowing myself to believe any of this was more than simply a convenient lay was beyond kidding myself.
Who was I to pretend differently when the facts were staring me straight in the face?
This man who was out here saving lives while I should be at home recovering so I could, eventually, return back to work and do the same. Not staring at my phone like some lovesick teenager hoping their crush replied.
I was twenty-four goddamn years old. I had a career and a fucking pension. I had two other mouths to feed.
Why was I bothering to get myself twisted over some man I’d fucked once?
My stomach twisted the second my phone went off again. Lifting it slowly, I opened up the incoming message.
Do you not have the ability to go in from the backend and search the hospital’s database? came his reply.
I talked such a big game in my head for someone experiencing the embarrassing affects of butterflies in their stomach. I’m not a hacker, Silas. I don’t have some fancy code to get me into your scheduling program just because I have a badge and a gun.
How disappointing.
Oh my fucking god, this man. He was honest to god encouraging me.
What on Earth was wrong with him?
Hello? Work schedule, please.
Why does it matter? You have something to do afterward that I’m not aware of?
I forced myself to set my phone down again, feeling my cheeks pinch from how hard I was grinning.
What an interesting thing to say. He’d dressed up that last part so casually and yet, I could feel the possessiveness dripping from his words, much like how that hand of his had gripped my thigh while we’d eaten in his kitchen.
A silent ‘you better not’ attached at the end that was no doubt making him grip his phone in a tighter hold while he stared at the screen, waiting for my reply.
Picturing it now was easy. A severe line cutting through the middle of his brows while he furrowed them, a small frown tugged at his mouth, conveniently covered by his facemask, his latex gloves thinning around his knuckles while he flexed them around his phone.
Taking the opportunity to tease him, provoking him enough to get some sort of reaction to see where we both were, was too tempting not to give in to. I’d built so much up in my head and now that some things were locking into place, somehow working out in my delusional favor, I had to keep going.
Maybe before. I replied. I’m quite popular.
Instantly, my phone lit up with a call.
Pulling in a deep breath, I tapped on the screen and put it up to my ear. “Hello?”
“With what,” he demanded, the sounds of beeping machines in the background quickly being cut off.
“Does it matter?” I countered.
There was dead silence on the other end of the line that rung very loudly.
Perhaps, I wasn’t the only one testing boundaries, sticking my feet in the proverbial dark waters where it was hard to see the edge of the drop off and seeing how far out I could wander. Being more covert about it in my case had its advantages, but I could appreciate Silas’s poignant approach.
A no nonsense, full-stop type of demand that needed little words to get across what he was asking in order to demand an answer.
Like me, he wanted the confirmation that this was exclusive.
At least, from the context I was gathering from this sudden phone call after the implication I’d thrown out there about fucking around with someone else.
What other reason would he have for calling me?
Casualness didn’t exactly warrant care. Especially, if we were already using protection.
What did he care if I was seeing someone else unless he wanted it to be that way?
“I just wanted to know what time to arrive,” I finally said. “So I know how long I have to get ready. Like I told you before, what I’m wearing takes a while to put on.”
I could hear the audible breath escaping his lungs slowly. “I’ll send a car for you.”
“Spoiling me, huh,” I drawled, a smile crawling across my face.
He snorted softly. “What else did you find?”
“What?”
“On my rap sheet. I’m guessing that’s what you looked up to get my number. Anything else interesting on there that I should know?”
“You don’t have a rap sheet.”
“So you looked through the entire file. Interesting.”
Busted.
“Even got your social, too.”
Something in the background flooded wherever he was with noise, the sounds of the hospital coming alive again along with some woman’s voice that sounded vaguely familiar. There was a brief conversation that was muffled as the phone was pulled away from Silas’s mouth, none of which I could make out.
When the background quieted again, he said, “Six on Wednesday. I’ll have someone come pick you up.”
Butterflies kicked up in my stomach again.
Sending a driver?
Now that was over the top and not at all giving me a complex.
“You’re not even concerned I have access to your social?”
“Be sure to let me know what kind of boat you decide to buy with my credit.” And then the call was dropped.
I pulled the phone from my ear, shaking my head.
A boat.
Who said that kind of shit to someone with access to ruining their financial future?
It was his personality. That had to be what I was growing attached to. Nothing else was making me grin at my phone like a fucking idiot ready to spam text him with pictures of boats I’d Googled in order to see what kind of reaction I’d get out of him.
Probably more sarcasm. Definitely critiques on my stylistic choices of how I’d be spending this fake amount of money I was about to take out with a loan under his name.
Though, who was he to judge with his house looking like it was inspired by a Martha Stewart magazine?
That reminded me, I really needed to ask him what was up with the decor in his house.
Remnants from a past partner?
There was no way he picked out any of that by himself.
The door flew open, wind rushing in from the harsh motion of it being shoved inward so hard. “Bishop.”
I jumped in my chair, clinging onto on of the armrests while my phone was flipped out of my hand and clattered to the desk. The sound had me wincing and slowly moving my gaze up to where TJ stood, completely unsurprised to see me, in the doorway.
Shit.
“Uh... I can explain.”
He nodded, indicating back over his shoulder with his chin. “You up for a little stakeout?”
Um, yes. Anything to distract me from the mind-numbing itch that had settled under my skin after that phone call and completely ramped me up again.
“Aren’t I supposed to still be on leave?”
He waved his hand, pushing the door back further while he leaned his weight into it. “Captain’s off the next two days. She can yell at me then.”
I squinted, suddenly suspicious. “How did you know I was in here?”
He popped a brow. “Saw you sneak in. You think you could get past my desk without me noticing?”
Damn.
Although, that’s what I got for underestimating a senior officer.
“I was going to stop by and say hi, I swear.”
“Sure you were,” he drawled. “Come on, let’s go. I want one of those bagel sandwiches you were bragging about the last time I saw you.”
Pushing away from the desk, I stood and gathered my phone. Glancing down at the screen, one new text from Silas lingering on my screen, reading, ‘Six. Wednesday. Don’t be late.’
Oh, I wouldn’t dare dream of it.